


Peace in Our Time

by orphan_account



Series: Evenings on the Ground [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, F/F, Getting to Know Each Other, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:42:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3439124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the course of a war and its aftermath, Clarke and Lexa learn a little more about each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Do you miss the sky?

**Author's Note:**

> This, if you can believe it, is a WIP prequel to a WIP. I feel ridiculous. 
> 
>  
> 
> ~~This story will be a series of vignettes showing the growth and change of Clarke and Lexa.~~
> 
> UPDATED 3/4/15:  
> What I had planned has been jossed so irreparably, I doubt I'll be able to continue this particular story. I'm leaving it up but closing it off at 2 chapters. Hopefully at some point I'll be inspired to write Clarke/Lexa again, but it will no doubt be a very different type of story... Sorry!

“Do you miss the sky?”

They are the first words spoken in over two hours. Clarke takes a break from staring at the cell door to stare over at Lexa instead.

The other girl is still lying down in the far corner, where she'd planted herself after they realized they wouldn't be making any kind of escape without some help from the outside. She said they should both get some sleep so they'd be ready when the time came – but she'd ended up staring up at the ceiling same as Clarke stared at the wall. Probably had the same torturous thoughts running through her head. _Did the others make it through alive_? _What was going on out there?_

Now Clarke tries to ignore the press of those thoughts as she gropes for an answer. Life on the ground has been one long fight for survival with no break in sight. It would be understandable – _easier_ – for her to say she had never spared a thought of the Ark still floating up above them, a cold and silent tomb.

“Sometimes I miss the view,” Clarke says instead. “And the hope I felt when I looked at it.”

Over in the corner, Lexa blinks up at the ceiling, a slow sweep of her lashes down and up. After a moment Clarke looks back to the cell door, the worried thoughts once again picking up speed, clambering for attention –

“When I was young,” Lexa says softly, and Clarke looks over, startled. “Before we knew I was going to be the Commander, I used to dream about space.” Her face makes a slight, complicated expression that Clarke can't read, but she continues speaking in that quiet, almost dreamy tone. “The clans were always at war back then. My village lost many of our warriors – and, I don't know, even back then I knew it was all a waste. Fighting each other over these small scraps of land that aren't in the Deadzones.”

She falls silent and the quiet stretches out long enough that Clarke thinks she might be done sharing, but then, “So I used to look up at the sky and wonder what it would be like to look down and see all the clans – to see the whole Earth as one. We went to the moon,” she says to Clarke abruptly. “Someone once told me that. Is it true?”

“The first generation on the Ark only survived because of lunar water,” Clarke offers. One of the founding stories in their history was of that first tense expedition to the moon after the bombs had cut off communication with the ground. It was the first instance of cooperation between the stations before they united to form the Ark.

“What does the Earth look like?”

“Have you ever seen pictures?” Clarke asks. “Did anything like that survive?”

Lexa shakes her head, “What does the Earth look like now? How much of it is Deadzone?” She sits up and finally looks over at Clarke for the first time in hours. Their eyes meet and Clarke swallows but does not break the gaze.

“It looks...” Clarke pauses, suddenly aware that her description will be no more satisfying than the pictures of the ground she used to look at as a child. Sitting in her artificially-lit, atmosphere-controlled room, she had no understanding of _what_ she was missing from those pictures, only that she was missing it. Pictures could never capture the smell of wet grass, the ever-shifting sensation of the wind on one's skin or the warmth of the sun.

“It looks alive,” she says finally. She thinks the answer won't satisfy the other girl, but to her surprise she nods thoughtfully.

This time silence does last, but it's of a different kind now. They've talked about something other than war for perhaps the first time ever, and it pings something inside Clarke. She wants to talk some more, she wants her friends to be alive, and she wants desperately, more than anything, to be at peace.

 


	2. Clarke is talking again.

Clarke is talking again.

Lexa lets her voice wash over her but doesn't listen too carefully. She can take comfort in the sound of Clarke's voice like she does the rustle of the wind through the trees, but she knows if she concentrates and actually processes the words, she'll probably lose her temper.

The leaders of the Mountain Men sit across the table from them, close enough that Lexa can imagine wrapping her hands around their necks, but not close enough for her to actually reach out and do it. They only occasionally glance at her, for their attention is directed to the girl at her side.

They are listening to Clarke, who is talking again.

The Mountain Men are all pale. Sickly. Their weak appearances are deceiving, though; she knows these are the same creatures who have sent out tendrils of poison gas through her forests for years, who have found a way to turn good warriors into mindless savages who feast on their own. Who have, according to Clarke, been bleeding her people dry so that they may continue to live in their dark little hole in the ground.

Humans used to have stories about creatures who couldn't abide the sunlight and needed to feast on human blood in order to survive. Vampires. Goblins. The stories were supposed to be untrue – lies to entertain and frighten little children. But stranger things have come out of the aftermath of the great war.

Clarke is still talking.

Lexa looks at the vampires from the mountain and wonders what they see when they look at her and Clarke. Are they cataloging their height, weight, and vitality? Are they trying to assess how much they might gain from the fluid in their veins?

When Clarke talks, do they hear her words or the bleating of a farm animal awaiting slaughter?

“We don't think any more people should have to die,” Clarke says.

The Mountain Men are no more than dusty relics, cooped up with all the other worthless objects from before the bombs contaminated the Earth. Lexa has to believe _that's_ where their evil comes from; that they are not of this world, but the old one.

“There can be peace,” Clarke says.

Lexa's people have built up a society on the backs of irradiated, short-lived generations who scraped and fought for survival just long enough to ensure there would be another day for humanity. The others call them _Grounders_ , like it is somehow more natural to have grown up in a hole or a metal box in the sky.

“We are dying inside this mountain,” one of the vampires says at last, weak eyes fixed on Clarke. “New leaks spring up every month. Any day now we might be hit with a catastrophic containment breech. We don't make our decisions lightly; we do all this so that our society might survive and go on.”

The words have some kind of effect on Clarke, Lexa can see that much without understanding why. She watches Clarke's already soft mouth soften further, flex and press together in understanding and sympathy.

“You would be surprised at what people will volunteer to do so that their friends and family might live,” Clarke says. Lexa is still missing something, and all this talk is starting to rankle. “If you would give us Tsing's notes, we could work out an exchange. Your people could get their procedures done through donations – ”

“No,” Lexa says.

Clarke stops and looks at her. The Mountain Men look at her.

Clarke is worried and suddenly tense at her side; Lexa would spare her a look if the vampires weren't watching and waiting for a sign of weakness.

“There won't be any donations,” Lexa continues. Her eyes flick around the table, meeting every gaze except Clarke's. “There will be no more _procedures_.”

“ _Lexa –_ ” Clarke starts, but she cuts her off.

“I have talked to the leaders of the other clans, and we all agree.” Lexa leans forward over the table and finally lets the barest hint of the bottomless well of hatred she feels for these monsters show. “This war only ends in one way, and that is when we retrieve all of our people you have locked up. After that, whoever is still alive among you can rot in here.

“Because I promise you now,” Lexa says quietly, heedless of Clarke's horrified expression. “Your people will never reach the ground.”

 


End file.
